DIY Strobe light!

[MintyCondition]

Strobe light tutorial by Minty Condition.

(Original comes from the website: http://www.kripkrap.ru/home/svetyashhijsya-korob however it is in Russian so I will make an English tutorial here)

Difficulty: Novice!

Hello, and welcome onto the tutorial on how to make your own strobe light... in a box (optional)!

Preview of the finished product:

You will need the following:

A little bit of electronic knowledge

A soldering iron

Solder

Audio splitter

9V battery adapter and battery

3.5mm cable from the headphone

Transistor KT817 (same or similar type(I got mine at JayCar))

3pcs of 5 mm LED (color and amount may choose to your taste, but the voltage requirements vary with each choice so be sure to check before you use. This tutorial uses Blue LED's which require 3V to operate)

The following is the optional box materials:

Plexiglass acrylic

Fine sandpaper

Electric wire

Hot glue or similar

Now for the build of the product (skip to step 7. if you do not want to build the box)

1. Rule out your box on the plexiglass, make your own dimensions or follow the guide: 4pcs of 15cm x 5cm and 2pcs of 5cm x 5cm.

2. Cut out all the pieces.

3. Make two holes about 5mm or so in one of the bigger pieces.

4. (optional) Sand paper each of the pieces until you get a a non-see-through look, and do the same to the LED's for maximum effect.

5. Stick your box together using normal tape and then glue all the pieces together (don't forget to remove the tape prior to adding glue, I suggest glue the edges first and go from there).

6. Place the power and 3.5mm cord end into the box through the two holes that we made and secure them with more glue!

7. Prior to soldering don't forget to strip all of the wires and tin them!

Now solder all the components together like shown and (optional) add heat shrink:

Please note that the voltage here for our build should be 9V (shown as 12V) and 3 LED's (shown as 4)

Be sure to check all your soldering jobs before continuing and try plugging in everything and checking if it works.

8. Now secure the whole box, plug everything in, play your music and you get a fantastic amateur strobe light!

Trouble shooting:

Volume matters, the higher the volume, the more sensitive or weaker the light.

Be sure to check all your soldering jobs.

Make sure none of the components are touching.

You may be wondering why there is no sound when the light works, that because it has no speakers! This is where the audio splitter cable comes in, using ipod as an example, connect the audio splitter to the iPod and connect speakers or headphones to one side and the light to other side.

Tips:

Add some tape. heatshrink or bend the LED's to be sure that they don't contact each other and short circuit and you could also do the same with all the other wires.

Speak to somebody at JayCar or similar stores and they will help you out.

Modding:

Add more LED's, but be sure to add extra 3V with every LED added.

You may also like to add a switch somewhere in the circuit so that you can turn it off when not in use.

Thanks for reading!

Credits go to http://www.kripkrap.ru